Modern business management calls for effective communications between management and employees. Among various other techniques for communicating with employees, conventional employee communication programs have typically included providing a bulletin board upon which printed material, such as for example, posters including photographs, artwork, designs and/or slogans, and messages are displayed. Topics that may be the subject of employee communications are diverse and may involve safety, work quality, teamwork, morale and self-motivation. For example, since safety is an important consideration in most working environments, a poster with a slogan relating to the exercise of caution in potentially dangerous situations may be displayed for impressing upon employees an employer's requirement for observing on-the-job safety. Other examples of representative employee communications include news releases about the company, messages for boosting employee morale and/or messages relating to employee activities.
In conventional systems, graphic designers may develop posters and other employee communications by hand or on a computer aided design system. Typically, they are printed as a large employee communication for display and then sent to a client for mounting to a bulletin board. The bulletin board may be relatively sophisticated and creatively organized for efficiency and visual attention, such as a three-panel bulletin board on the order of 26 inches (66 centimeters) by 63 inches (160 centimeters). The posters are typically manually replaced to communicate corporate goals, news of interest and employee activities to employees.
At regular time intervals, such as once a month or once a week, clients may select new posters and messages and/or the new posters and messages are automatically selected, printed and shipped periodically to each client. Because of the large number and variety of clients and the specific requirements for certain users, there are significant inefficiencies associated with selecting, printing and shipping the employee communications. This is especially so where various bulletin boards located throughout a company's various facilities require different material to be posted on differing bulletin boards.
In addition, achieving a relatively high degree of customization and selectivity with traditional manual bulletin board systems is economically problematic.
Recently, the display of printed employee communications have begun to be supplanted by the distribution of electronic media, where the electronic media replaces the physical posters and printed materials and the conventional bulletin board is replaced by an electronic display. Maintaining the employee communications in electronic form from creation to display significantly reduces costs, while at the same time, dramatically improving the flexibility of an employee communications program.
A known system for the distribution of such electronic media is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 7,765,273, to Kenna, III et al., which describes replacing the display of printed employee communications with a method and apparatus for distribution of electronic media. In a typical embodiment of the invention, electronic media replaces the posters and printed materials and the conventional bulletin board is replaced by an electronic display. Maintaining the employee communications in electronic form from creation to display significantly reduces cost while dramatically improving the flexibility of an employee communications program. In particular, collections of electronic media are created or generated from pre-assembled media content from a provider, where different collections are transmitted to different displays at separate remote subscriber locations.
Other known systems for the distribution of such electronic media is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 7,743,112 and US Patent Publication No. 2010/0175017, both to Kenna, III et al., which describe an electronic display for displaying selected electronic media content that may be selected, modified and/or generated by a subscriber. The systems allow for dramatically increased subscriber control of the media content presented as well as for increased security for any confidential media content to be presented on the customer display. The systems further provide for individual control of multiple displays that may be located in differing geographic locations while at the same time providing for ease of information management.
However, in an organization having several locations, each location requiring different information to be displayed, managing content and content distribution becomes a formidable logistical challenge. For example, where employee communications are used to display information related to local weather, traffic, and safety, it can be difficult to orchestrate reprogramming of the media data for the specific needs of each location on an as needed basis. However, in emergent circumstances such as a weather emergency or natural disaster, it can be vital to provide location specific information in a timely way under conditions of confusion. Even in more mundane circumstances, where general announcements are to be posted announcing the visit of a VIP guest to a specific location, or a holiday celebrated at certain locations within a given country, it would be advantageous to update the relevant information in a robust, efficient, and reliable way.
What is desired therefore is a system and method for controlling the distribution of electronic media that addresses these deficiencies, providing maximum versatility and ease of use.